Client

Greater Twin Cities United Way is a nonprofit that seeks to unite caring people to build pathways out of poverty. In 2016 they touched the lives of over 1 million people in their 9-county region. They do this in part, by connecting over 63,000 people with local volunteer opportunities each year. ​

Challenge

GTCUW predicts that there are 1 million potential volunteers in the Twin Cities that want to help, but don’t know where to start. They can recruit these 1 million people in predominantly two spaces: the digital space and during events.

Solution

For the digital space, A matchmaking app that connects volunteers with at-home opportunities using a fun play-type personality quiz based recommender system.

For the event space, a easy card game that matches volunteers with agencies during live events.

Initial Investigation

How are volunteers currently matched with opportunities and can we improve upon it?

How do other apps match people with other things, like jobs or with each other (dating)?​

The challenge of getting volunteers plugged in, isn’t a new problem for United Way. Today they work hard to connect people in 2 ways. People can call Mary and Julie at the United Way office and get matched via phone interview. This is time consuming and not well suited for quicker, at home volunteering. Or people can use United Way’s current online tool Volunteer United to search for opportunities.

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User Testing of Volunteer United

To better understand the digital experience we tested Volunteer United with users. We found that for users who wanted to volunteer on site and knew exactly what they wanted to do—it worked really well! They were able to use the search bar to find their specific interests.

However for users that weren’t sure what they were looking for or wanted an at home opportunity—the tool proved to be confusing and require too much tribal knowledge to find meaningful results. Many of these users searched for broad keywords and didn’t get the results they expected.

Competitive Analysis

How do other apps match people?

Common Systems

Detailed Systems

Tinder is regarded as the standard and was suggested by the client as a source of inspiration because of it's ease of use.

Big Data Systems

eHarmony is known for it's use of big data and sophisticated matchmaking algorithms. That is outside the scope of the project.

These sites have a long initial on-boarding stage of at least 50 questions. The client wanted the webapp to have a short on-boarding.

Clever Systems

​​HiDine matches you based on a mutual restaurant you are both dying to try.

PERSONAL THOUGHTS: Creating a big data system is outside the scope of the project and the client doesn't want a detailed system. That leaves a common system or a clever system. While Tinder's UI is simple, the geographic data it has to crunch pushes it beyond the scope of the project. That leaves us with coming up with something clever. We need to find a third dataset.

The first dataset are the users. The second dataset are the opportunities. A third dataset would be something with characteristics the first two sets hold in common. For example the HiDine App from above, their first and second datasets are people looking to date, their third dataset are user desired restaurants.

Isn't HiDine cool?! It finds an outside source to "sort the deck".

Survey

What are the reasons people give when they volunteer and what are their excuses when they don't?We surveyed 111 people and found out:

This confirmed what GTCUW already thought; the goal was not to create new people that care rather, find those that already do care and connect them to existing needs in the community. These are the people that are falling through the cracks of the current time-consuming phone calls or the confusing first-time experience of Volunteer United.

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Research - How to make a clever app?

I started researching, "how to find a job that's a good fit." I figure since job hunting is a popular topic, there's got to be research that is applicable to our project. This led me to research on motivation. Specifically the Motivation Spectrum as outlined by the researchers at Vega Factor.

The reason people are motivated to volunteer is often because it gives them purpose. Purpose is when you believe in the outcome of the work. You may not like doing it, but you believe in the greater mission of the work. The only motivator stronger than that is play.

The strongest motivator is play. Play is when your reason for doing the activity is the activity itself. You do it because you enjoy it. The work is its own reward. However, what you and I consider play can be very different. Some of us like to build things, while others like to tell stories, or go dancing.

PERSONAL THOUGHTS: Here is where I am looking for that outside thing that the HiDine app has, a third dataset. I see that play is important, but from my experience in elementary education I know that what two people consider play is very different. Then I remembered Stuart Brown's book Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. He broke down play into 8 different play types. What if we match volunteers with opportunities based on their play type?

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Two Initial Prototypes

We proposed two potential apps to our clients.

"Volunteer United App"

We conducted usability testing of Volunteers United. This site puts keyword search front and center. We found new users have problems with the keyword search. They don't know the correct terms to look for. The goal of the new app is to replace keyword search with a list of choices to pick from.​The recommender system works by assigning points to matches. We weigh the results in favor of causes. If you believe in something you'll be more willing to help out in any capacity. Matching causes are worth 2 points, matching skills are worth 1 point.

"Personality Test App"

This app focuses on telling the user about themselves. It uses a casual friendly tone. It determines the causes users believe in and their play type using multiple-choice questions.

The recommender system works by assigning points to matches. We weigh the results in favor of play type. If you find something fun you're more likely to do it. Matching play type is worth 4 points, matching causes are worth 1 point.

Client response, "Can you combine them?" Yes.

Deliverable: Kind Finder Web App

We created an application called Kind Finder to identify the causes a user cares about, determine their play type and skills, then use this information to match them with at home volunteer opportunities that are interesting, rewarding and fit into their schedule.

​Our goal was to keep the user engaged. We do this by using a progress bar, language that promotes a positive self narrative, and encouragement along the way.

Deliverable: Kind Card Kit

Kind Card Kit

​The users in the event space are the same folks that want to help but don’t know where to start. The only difference, is that these people have made the first move in attending a volunteer event. At large events, there is a positive energy in the air and people are excited to get involved. However, organizing that many people can be a slower process than people expect, and it ends up giving off a strong theme park vibe. The hurry up and wait experience.

GTCUW has a very large annual event called Action Day. It involves hundreds of volunteers packing 10,000 backpacks. Although the backpacks are the main event, GTCUW invites a number of their partner agencies to set up tables around the event space and offer additional volunteer opportunities. They wanted a way to create a more meaningful connection between volunteers that aren’t actively packing backpacks and their agency tables. ​Our solution is the Kind Card kit! This is a set of Cause and Skill cards that relate the various volunteer opportunities to individuals passions and skills. Let’s take a look at how this works… (click video below)